Thursday, June 18, 2015

Church Shooter Nabbed...and other important political news

Excerpt: (Today) marks the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. For the British, it was a famous, but costly victory, as we're reminded by author Bernard Cornwell: Two hundred years ago, a 33-year-old Irishman wrote a letter to his wife. It was a letter that many soldiers have written, a letter they hope will never be delivered, the letter that would only be posted if the writer died in battle.

I read the first two volumes of Manchester's wonderful Churchill trilogy back when they came out. I was sadly disappointed when it was announced he was too ill to finish the third and, in my view, most interesting volume, covering WWII. When I found he had turned the project over to Paul Reid, I approached it with some trepidation, sure it would not be up to the master. I was wrong. This book, written mostly by Reid from Manchester's voluminous research, is every bit as good, perhaps better than the first two. It is both a chronicle of Churchill's life from 1940 until his death in 1965 (which I remember), but a chronicle of the leadership decisions in WWII by Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler, Truman, Ike, Monty and other flag officers. History buffs will love it, but it is not a project to be undertaken lightly--it runs over 1,000 pages. Still, it is not to be missed.

Excerpt: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her personal email account to handle high level negotiations in 2011 for a no-fly zone to help topple Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, according to a series of emails obtained by Fox News, challenging her claim the private server did not hold classified information. The emails, linked here, conflict with Clinton's statement that she did not put national security at risk by using a personal account. "I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material," Clinton, now a candidate for president, told reporters in March. "I'm certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material."

Excerpt: Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon said on Twitter that the campaign will propose “revenue enhancements” to raise money for various government programs including universal preschool.

Excerpt: In the aftermath of the House Select Committee on Benghazi marathon questioning of one of Bill and Hillary Clinton's top henchman, former journalist Sidney Blumenthal, information collected by the committee appears to have expanded the investigation. For example, contrary to Mrs. Clinton's statements regarding what she said were unsolicited emails from Blumenthal, who was in Libya on business, it wasn't Blumenthal who wrote the numerous memos about Libya he had sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the panel's chairman who is investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks said on Fox News Channel on Tuesday.

‘Who the Hell is Bernie Sanders?’ These Southerners want everyone to know. By Stephanie McCrummen

Excerpt: At a burger bar near downtown Atlanta, tables were piled with “Bernie Y’all” buttons and “Who the Hell is Bernie Sanders?” pamphlets. Sign-in sheets were readied, and now, there was only the question of how this meeting of Bernie Sanders supporters would go. Here came the people. Men with tiny gray pony tails. Women with tattoos. Unapologetic lefties such as Starr Wright, who said in a Southern drawl, “If the main negative anyone can throw out is that he’s a white male Jewish socialist, then bring it on!”

Excerpt: The Islamic State plans to take Baghdad to make it the capital of a radical Sunni caliphate from what is left of Syria and Iraq. Its enemy, theocratic Iran, is forging its own Shiite empire. Through its proxies, Iran now effectively runs much of Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. When Teheran gets a nuclear bomb, it will urge on Shiite minorities to overthrow the Sunni monarchies in the rich, oil-exporting Persian Gulf nations. Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks he can reconstitute the empire of the czars and the later Soviet Union. American “reset” diplomacy green-lighted his annexation of the Crimea and his occupation of areas of Ukraine. Should Putin wish to absorb Estonia or other Baltic States, NATO probably would not stop him.

Excerpt: The House on Thursday approved a key plank of President Obama's trade agenda after the push nearly imploded amid Democratic resistance last week, sending the bill to the Senate where it still faces an uncertain fate. The 218-208 vote nevertheless marked a significant victory for Obama and his pro-trade supporters in both parties. The vote came after Obama huddled Wednesday evening with congressional allies to try to craft a way forward.

Excerpt: The world, Lindsey Graham will assure you, isn’t that different from the old pool hall his father ran. “Everything I know about politics, I learned in the pool room,” Graham told a New Hampshire audience in March. “It was really good training. That is why I know the Iranians are lying. People like the Iranians came to the pool room and you could not trust them.” Strategic ambiguity? Alliance-building and breaking? Graham traces his approach to these big political tasks back to his childhood in the small textile town of Central, South Carolina, near ClemsonUniversity.

Excerpt: I don't think the history of what he has said or done prior to April 2015 has any bearing on his candidacy. You have to go back months and even a few years to find out that he's given $700,000 or so in political donations to Harry Reid, Rahm Emmanuel, Charlie Rangel, and Charles Schumer, and he even made several donations to the sexting ex-solon Anthony Weiner, but that's so old news! He's also given money to Hillary Clinton, but just because he has donated to the candidate he'd like to run against, it shouldn't be a problem. I mean, if he's the nominee, he won't continue to donate to Mrs. Clinton's campaign, right? Trump also used to support abortion rights, but lately, in April, and especially in May and the first two weeks of June, he has come out strongly pro-life.

Excerpt: Donald Trump would be a mere sideshow curiosity in the 2016 elections if it were not for his name recognition and entertainment factor. According to Real Clear Politics, Trump is polling higher than Rick Perry, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham and Bobby Jindal. But even if he’s fired in the end — and we hope he is — he will provide some much-needed humor.

Excerpt: Last fall, my friend Wendy Kaminer appeared on a Smith College panel — held in New York City, not on Smith’s campus in Northampton, Mass. — called “Challenging the Ideological Echo Chamber: Civil Discourse and the Liberal Arts.” From the transcript, it appears the panel discussion proceeded as the better academic panels do, with spirited, civil disagreement. Kaminer led the charge — as she always does — for free speech, challenging the audience to speak (and think) freely. And when it comes to free speech, Kaminer practices what she preaches. She self-censors for no one. When the Smith College newspaper published the transcript, however, it contained the following, absurd statement: “Trigger/Content Warnings: Racism/racial slurs, ableist slurs, antisemitic language, anti-Muslim/Islamophobic language, anti-immigrant language, sexist/misogynistic slurs, references to race-based violence, references to antisemitic violence.” As Kaminer pointed out in her Washington Post piece about the incident, the paper then went on to edit the transcript itself by removing the allegedly “triggering content.” For example, it replaced Smith president Kathleen McCartney’s joking comment, “We’re just wild and crazy, aren’t we?” with “We’re just wild and [ableist slur], aren’t we?”

Sheriff David Clarke: MPD, city downplaying extent of video system crash. By M.D. Kittle

Excerpt: The Milwaukee Police Department’s video system crash is a much bigger problem than city officials are letting on, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke asserts. The sheriff said he has heard from several sources that “this thing is being squelched” by City Hall and Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn. “They are downplaying the extent of the problem. This is going to have some profound impact on some very serious cases,” Clarke said.

Excerpt: The capstone to Maj. Fred Galvin's career was the command of the Marine Corps' first-ever special operations unit. He led the elite company into Afghanistan in February 2007.

But less than a month after Fox Company arrived in eastern Afghanistan, Galvin was engulfed in scandal. His unit was accused of firing indiscriminately after a car bomb attack on March 4, killing up to 19 Afghan civilians and wounding 50 more. Galvin and his men were cleared in court a year later of any responsibility after testimony by more than 50 witnesses. The three-officer jury concluded that the two officers and their Marines "acted appropriately and in accordance with the rules of engagement ... in response to a complex attack." (Another case of overzealous brasshats and lawyers ready to jump on their own men long before the real information justifies it. Frustrating and maddening. --Del)

Boy Plays Alone in Backyard for Hour and a Half, Parents Charged With Felony Neglect. By Dave Jolly

Excerpt: No one thought much about me playing alone for hours and no one ever called the police on my parents, but a neighbor did call the police on the parents of an 11 year old boy in Florida for playing alone in his backyard for an hour and half. The 11 year old boy arrived home before his parents and he didn’t have a key to the house, so he went around to the backyard and shot hoops with his basketball. When a neighbor saw the boy outside alone, he/she called the police. When the parents arrived home, they were met by police who handcuffed them and arrested them for child negligence.

Excerpt: I offer another chronicle, a 14-hour tour of the skeleton I once knew as California. ... I try to drive by the Reedley DMV on the way home to switch a car registration. Appointments take a long waiting period, but the line of the show-ups is still far out the door and well into the parking lot. I pass. The state announced that it was surprised that “unexpectedly” (the catch adverb of the Obama era [1]) nearly 500,000 illegal aliens have already been processed with new driver’s licenses. The lines at the office suggest that many DMVs simply have transmogrified into illegal alien license-processing centers. The last time I had visited the office, I noticed the customers were also dealing with fines, tickets, or fix-it citations as part of the process. I thought, how will they pay for all that, given that “living in the shadows” and ignoring summonses and threats is far easier than paying what the state wants? And then, presto, the governor just announced a wish that the poor should be given “ticket amnesty.”

Excerpt: In 1993 the people of Santa Barbara needed water, spent about $23 million to build a desalinazation plant—then thanks to environmentalists and depopulation lobbyists, the plant was never used. Now, they are forced to use the plant, since the area is quickly running out of water, any water. Now they have no choice. So, they will spend $53 million, or more, to retrofit the plant and hope to have it open for use in 2016..not a day too soon.

The Decision to Replace Hamilton on the New $10 Bill Is Outrageous and Ignorant. By Quin Hillyer

Excerpt: Rather than try to clean this up to make it read more professional, let me share my immediate response last night upon learning that Alexander Hamilton is to be replaced on the $10 bill with an unnamed woman. I sent this to a small group of blogger friends, without even time to reflect: Historically speaking, this is an absolute outrage. And I say that as a Madison (and somewhat Jefferson) man in the Madison vs. Hamilton debate. (I suppose they couldn't replace Jackson on the $20. He was a founding light of the Democrats Party, a slave owner and a genocidal killer of native Americans. ~Bob)

Excerpt: However, Planned Parenthood’s claim is still misleading. The poll did not specify that it was asking about terminating a pregnancy 22 weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period — the dating method that Planned Parenthood and other opponents of the bill use and accept. Moreover, it did not test for the actual bill under consideration, with its exceptions for certain cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother but not for emotional issues. We wavered between One and Two Pinocchios. But the Hart polling memo specifically refers to provisions in H.R. 1797 (the 2013 version) — and this particular poll is outdated at best for the 2015 debate, thus tipping the rating to Two. Both sides should be transparent about the age method they are using. We will continue to monitor uses of the “20 week” phrase without clarification, which will earn automatic Pinocchios.

Excerpt: Vietnamese dissidents Wednesday pleaded for international help for prisoners of conscience jailed inside their country and warned that warming US ties with Hanoi may send the wrong message to the ruling communists. Prominent blogger Nguyen Van Hai, who was released from prison in late October and sent into exile in America, told US lawmakers that "his fellow prisoners entrusted me to relay their cries for help." They wanted the international community to "understand that the persecution of prisoners of conscience in Vietnam is systemic, to lay bare the deceit of Vietnam authorities when they commit to revise Vietnamese laws in order to participate in trade agreements but do not implement such laws." (Unfortunately, human rights in Viet Nam have almost zero priority with Mr. Obama and his Administration, so I am afraid this will fall on deaf ears. --Del)

Did Russ Feingold’s progressive PAC pay for his D.C. apartment? By M.D. Kittle

Excerpt: Federal Election Commission filings show returning U.S. Senate candidate Russ Feingold and his liberal political action committee shelled out a lot of money at four-star hotels and restaurants in its mission to “stand up against the exploding corporate interest in our elections.” Progressives United PAC has spent money on itself and its founder, Feingold, the godfather of campaign finance reform. But did the PAC pay for Feingold’s D.C. residence? It appears so.

Excerpt: Jonathan Judaken, a history professor at RhodesCollege, has penned a histrionic on Campus Watch (CW) for the website Inside Higher Ed, blaming CW for a published report on a recent lecture he delivered at the University of Rochester. Among Judaken's numerous errors, one stands out: Campus Watch had nothing to do with the article that gave him the vapors. Don't you hate it when that happens?

Excerpt: In one of the year’s great anti-climaxes, NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack just announced a twofold move to resolve a controversy at the network stretching back to February: Brian Williams, the NBC News star serving a six-month suspension for embellishing stories about his past, will move to MSNBC in a “new role anchoring breaking news” and Lester Holt will move into a permanent role as anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” a position he has held on an interim basis since Williams’s suspension. (A congenital liar will fit right in at MSNBC. Meanwhile, I understand NBC got two first-round picks in the "lying journalist draft" next year. ~Bob)

Great idea: Greek parliament committee declares Troika debts illegal and says they can't and should not pay

Excerpt: "All the evidence we present in this report shows that Greece not only does not have the ability to pay this debt, but also should not pay this debt first and foremost because the debt emerging from the Troika's arrangements is a direct infringement on the fundamental human rights of the residents of Greece. Hence, we came to the conclusion that Greece should not pay this debt because it is illegal, illegitimate, and odious." "Having concluded a preliminary investigation, the Committee considers that Greece has been and still is the victim of an attack premeditated and organized by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. This violent, illegal, and immoral mission aimed exclusively at shifting private debt onto the public sector." (Wish I'd thought of this when I had a mortgage? Maybe I'll stop paying off the "illegal" credit card debt every month. ~Bob)

From a nondescript office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, an army of well-paid “trolls” has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet — and in real-life American communities. “The Internet audience has expanded from its early adopters, who were more likely to be well-educated liberal intelligentsia, to the whole of Russia, which overwhelmingly supports Putin. Also, by working every day to spread Kremlin propaganda, the paid trolls have made it impossible for the normal Internet user to separate truth from fiction.”

Excerpt: With news of a consensus on its financing structure, details of a proposed natural gas pipeline called the Turkish Stream are expected to be finalized as early as June 18th. The pipeline, which is estimated by internal sources to cost over $2 billion, will originate in Russia, pass through Turkey and end in Greece. The move seems very strategic of Russia — one of the largest exporters of gas in the world — which has shown interest in the financial backing of Greece's new leadership under leftist hardliners, says NCPA research associate Santiago Bello.

The U.S. Department of State (DOS) warned that expanding Europe's dependence on Russian gas would only increase political instability in the region and could reduce price competitiveness of natural gas in Europe, however members of Greece's ruling party, Syriza, quickly rebuked the observations and labeled them as attempted blackmail. Members of the DOS even went so far as to say that Turkish Stream in itself is not an economic investment, and there are perhaps a few reasons to believe so:

Excerpt: Banning "trans fats" could cost $11 billion, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which recently released a "declaratory order" regarding partially hydrogenated oils, the source of trans fats. The order finds that trans fats are no longer considered "generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for any use in human food."

What little analysis FDA does provide looks at "the costs of all significant effects of the removal, including packaged food reformulation and relabeling, increased costs for substitute ingredients, and consumer, restaurant and bakery recipe changes" and the "expected medical expenditure savings" as its benefits.

“The System is Broken”: Americans No Longer Believe In Its Institutions

Excerpt: It’s not difficult to see that the foundation is crumbling… A new Gallup poll has found that already low “confidence” in our system of government, our, the media, banking, big business, religious institutions and watchdogs is further eroding. “Americans’ confidence in most major U.S. institutions remains below the historical average for each one,” a Gallup spokesman said in a news release.

News Corp to Cut Jobs, Shift Resources to Digital Mediahttp://www.wsj.com/articles/news-corp-to-cut-jobs-shift-resources-to-digital-media-1434645075Excerpt: News Corp is carrying out a major reorganization at its Dow Jones news publishing unit that will involve substantial job cuts and shifting of resources into digital media efforts and core coverage areas. In a memo to staff on Thursday, Gerard Baker, editor in chief of Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, said the purpose of the moves was a “full transformation of our newsroom with a bold but simple aim: to become the premier digital news organization in the world.” He added, “This process will require us to discontinue some of our activities while investing more in others.”

Excerpt: Sonoma wine maker Vance Rose admits his timing was bad and isn’t happy that taxpayers are possibly left paying the debt. Rose borrowed more than $1 million in September 2008 — with the Small Business Administration backing more than $756,000 of those loans — for his winery called Rose Wine Group, LLC, according to an SBA database of loan charge-offs. “I bought the winery and its assets in late August, early September and the economy crashed,” he told Watchdog.org. “Distributors stopped taking on new products. I tried to make it work for three years but couldn’t get anything going, couldn’t get any more capital so I had to declare bankruptcy.”

Rising Dragon News

China Says It WillCeaseBuilding NEW Artificial Islands. By Jonah Bennett

Excerpt: A statement released by China’s foreign ministry says that China will cease building additional islands, though it plans to complete existing land reclamation efforts.

What do you think? Beijing appears to be heeding the warnings from Defense Secretary Ash Carter to cease land reclamation, although it intends to finish pre-existing work in the SpratlyIslands first. When finished, China will switch from creating new land mass to building facilities on completed islands, CNN reports. (If we just let Adolph have Czechoslovakia, we will have "Peace in our Time." ~Bob)

Excerpt: China’s Communist Party was subjected to an embarrassing lesson in democracy, as its offer of direct elections for the chief executive in Hong Kong was voted down.

After a year of turmoil and deepening divisions in the city over a proposal critics derided, it wasn’t a surprise that the election blueprint was rejected, but the optics of its demise added to the insult for Beijing. After most of the plan’s supporters walked out of the legislative chamber in a failed attempt to prevent a quorum, the vote, which required a two-thirds majority in the 70-member legislature to pass, took place in a cloud of confusion. The result: a resounding rejection with 28 votes against and only eight in favor.

Excerpt: A proposal to require gun locks on firearms not in use across the EmpireState made it through the state Assembly in a 77-58 vote Tuesday. The bill, termed “Nicholas’s Law,” after a 12-year-old who was killed in an accidental shooting by a middle school classmate, was introduced in January and now heads to the Senate after a largely party line vote by Assembly Democrats. (That way, if a young man trying to turn his life around breaks into your house to steal enough to feed his drug habit while he does the turning decides to indulge his progressive-given right to enjoy a little rape and violence, you won't be able to violate his rights by getting to your gun in time. My guns are always "in use" protecting my family. Note that the mother of the dead boy blames lack of another gun law, not parental fecklessness, for the child's death. ~Bob)

Excerpt: HenryCounty Police Lt. Joey Smith said the homeowner returned from work to find his shed being burglarized. The victim keeps a boat in the shed. He told police his dog alerted him to the structure's open door. The homeowner went into the shed and found a man trying to take items. Smith said the victim tried to detain the suspect at gunpoint; at some point, the suspect was shot in the abdomen.

Excerpt: Investigators said Ference threatened to kill the woman’s boyfriend and started chasing him into the basement. The boyfriend had a gun and shot Ference in the chest. He then called 911 and surrendered to police, according to Sharpsville Police Chief Keith Falasco.

Excerpt: Police widened the search Thursday for a white gunman who opened fire and killed nine people during a prayer service at a historic African American church here, in one of the worst attacks on a place of worship in the United States in recent memory. At least one other person was injured in the Wednesday night assault, which began about an hour after the assailant entered the church and observed the service, authorities said.

Charleston church shooting suspect caught over 240 miles away in North Carolina

Excerpt: Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old suspect in the deadly shooting at a Charleston church that left nine people dead, was captured Thursday at a traffic stop in Shelby, North Carolina, which is over 240 miles northwest from the crime scene, authorities said. Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said authorities were given a tip by a citizen, which lead to the capture. The suspect was in the vehicle and was cooperative, he said.

Excerpt: Charleston shooter Dylann Storm Roof was reportedly taking a drug that has been linked with sudden outbursts of violence, fitting the pattern of innumerable other mass shooters who were on or had recently come off pharmaceutical drugs linked to aggression.

According to a CBS News report, earlier this year when cops searched Roof after he was acting suspiciously inside a Bath and Body Works store, they found “orange strips” that Roof told officers was suboxone, a narcotic that is used to treat opiate addiction.

Activist: Rachel Dolezal Said That White People Can’t Talk About Racism. By Patrick Howley

Excerpt: Anti-racism activist Tim Wise revealed that secretly-white NAACP chapter head Rachel Dolezal tried to stop him from speaking at a college because she felt Caucasians shouldn’t talk about racism. “She was trying to keep me from coming to speak at Eastern Washington University, where she was a part-time professor, because in her estimation white folks can’t speak with any legitimacy to issues of racism,” Wise said in an interview with SiriusXM Radio host Mark Thompson. “Let the irony marinate there for a minute.”

Excerpt: Later this month, the Supreme Court will likely announce its decision on King v. Burwell, the lawsuit which asserts tax credits currently being paid to health insurers in 34 to 37 states that use the federal health insurance exchange are illegal. If the Supreme Court stops these tax credits, over six million people will be required to pay the full premiums for their Obamacare policies. This will cause a crisis, which will demand a response by Congress and the president. -

Excerpt: The House of Representatives voted Thursday to repeal the medical device tax in Obamacare, an unpopular mandate opposed by lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle. Democrats joined Republicans 280-140. The House also voted in 2013 to repeal the tax.

"Patients all across America are losing the ability to access the highest quality care for many reasons. One of those reasons is the extraordinary increase in costs," Republican Congressman Ryan Murphy said in a statement.

Excerpt: Today politicians from both political parties, echoing the claims of many special interest groups that provide massive campaign contributions, use deceptive language to achieve their (criminal) goals. As you will see, the claims they make about immigration are without merit and are deceptive and seek to satisfy their campaign contributors.

"You're Greener than Gore" News

Cong. Valadao Pressures U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Delta Smelt Status. By Stephen Frank

Excerpt: For those that do not know, the delta smelt, the size of an anchovy, is used as fish bait. While the Government has declared it is an endangered species, the State of California spent $10 million to create a hatchery for the smelt. So far Guv Brown has created 20,000 of the fish bait! Oh, instead of spending water bond money for water for people, he took $287 million to give more water to the fish bait. “For more than a decade, the Delta Smelt has been listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has failed to prove that efforts to save the species are effective or identify the cause of population decline."

Excerpt: Due to EPA regulations, you’ll start to notice that your electricity bill is more expensive this summer. The Energy Information Administration predicted that Americans will spend 4.8% more on electricity this year than the last. Is global warming causing air conditioners to run more? Nah, it’s just EPA regulations that are causing power plants to close because they are not deemed green enough.

California Has Never Experienced A Water Crisis Of This Magnitude – And The Worst Is Yet To Come. By Michael Snyde

Excerpt: A bill proposed by Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman would prevent parties that call for or encourage boycotts of Israel or Israeli products, or have MKs who do so, from receiving government campaign funding. (The BDS movement is doing all it can to aid the Muslims in their efforts to exterminate the Jews in Israel and the Middle East. But "BDS" doesn't have a real ring to it for marketing purposes. How about changing it to something snappy like "Operation Auschwitz" or "The Real Final Solution." The Islamists will love it. ~Bob)

Excerpt: On Thursday, Hillary Clinton hinted that she would not send US ground troops to fight ISIS if she were elected president. However, she has supported President Obama's current strategy of providing air support, supplies, and training to Iraqi forces. “I do not think it would be smart, effective or appropriate for us to put ground (combat) troops into Iraq. ... There are specific roles that our military is playing and can successfully play in better focusing the Iraqis themselves on what they have to do because, eventually, this will be won or lost by the people in the region. (She can say what she wants. Iraq will be part of a Sunni, Terror-exporting caliphate before the 2016 election. ~Bob)

Excerpt: The Associated Press reports, “Iran and six powers are still apart on all main elements of a nuclear deal with less than two weeks to go to their June 30 target date and will likely have to extend their negotiations, two diplomats tell The Associated Press. Their comments enforce concerns that obstacles to a pact remain beyond the public debate on how far Iran must open its nuclear program to outside purview under any deal.” The administration would greatly prefer a deal to be done by July 9, in which case Congress will have 30 days to hold an up or down vote. Beyond that Congress will get 60 days. Given a deal as bad as this one is likely to be, you can understand why extensive debate on the issue is not in the administration’s interest.

Muslim clerics: Those who insult Muhammad have “no right to live.” By Robert Spencer, JihadWaych.org

Excerpt: These clerics represent the vast majority of international opinion today. Most of the mainstream media agrees with them, as do most Christian clerics in the West — although those two groups would couch their refraining from doing anything to insult Muhammad as “respect” and avoiding “gratuitous provocation.” They are sowing a future of slavery and oppression for their children and their children’s children. (unfortunately, almost everything "insults Mohammad," from owning a dog, to opposing child marriage, to believing God had a son. ~Bob)

Excerpt: After some of its quarter of a million Muslims headed to join ISIS, Quebec decided the answer was a $2 million anti-radicalization center headed by a specialist in cultural sensitivity. But if you’re about to be beheaded by a masked ISIS Jihadist, a specialist in cultural sensitivity isn’t going to help you much. Western governments nevertheless keep rolling out their culturally sensitive approaches to fighting ISIS.

Excerpt: The chemical weapons deal the Obama administration helped negotiate with Syria two years ago came under withering scrutiny Wednesday as Congress aired gruesome testimony of how the Assad regime has used chlorine barrel bombs in more than two dozen recent attacks on civilians — leaving lawmakers in both parties frustrated by the president’s claim to have rid the war-torn nation of chemical munitions. “My heart grieves for the Syrian people. I only wish that we had made some different policy choices in Washington three years ago,” said Rep. Eliot L. Engel, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, who openly questioned the administration’s decision-making on Syria policy during the panel’s hearing.

Excerpt: During yesterday’s meeting in Tehran between Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al Abadi and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the former introduced the latter to Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, the operations chief for the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Committee and a US-listed Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

Excerpt: Earlier this week, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) confirmed that its leader, Nasir al Wuhayshi, had been killed in a US drone strike. A new emir for the group was named in short order: Qasim al Raymi. ... While al Raymi’s stature in the jihadists’ ranks has risen in the more than thirteen years since 9/11, his younger brother, who admittedly attended an al Qaeda training camp, has had a different fate. Ali Yahya Mahdi al Raymi has been held at Guantanamo since 2002. (Obama will now move him up on the release list. ~Bb)